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Label:Saint Babylas (died around 250) was a bishop of Antioch and a Christian martyr. The blessing gesture seen here is commonly associated with bishops and thus a number of reliquaries exist in this form.

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Philadelphia Museum of Art Handbook (2014 Edition)

According to an inventory of 1482, this life-size reliquary enshrined an arm bone of Saint Babylas, the bishop of Antioch martyred around the year 250. Traditionally, reliquaries were made in forms appropriate to the sacred objects they contained; here the relic, since removed, would have been visible through the chamber’s latticework door. The naturalistically rendered hand makes a gesture of blessing, by which bishops demonstrated their benevolent communication with the faithful. This is one of a dozen arm reliquaries once part of the Guelph Treasure, an important collection of medieval sacral objects kept for centuries at the cathedral of Saint Blaise in Brunswick, Germany, until its dispersal in the 1930s. Jack Hinton and Dean Walker, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014, pp. 102–103.

Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections

According to an inventory of 1482, this life-sized reliquary originally enshrined an arm bone of Saint Babylas, a bishop of Antioch martyred around 250 A.D. The object was designed for the relic to sit in the hollow chamber and be visible through the latticework door. Traditionally, vessels for relics were often made in forms appropriate to the sacred objects they contained. Here the hand, rendered in the naturalistic style of the late fifteenth century, makes a clear gesture of blessing, an activity associated with bishops that implies their benevolent communication with the faithful. This is one of a dozen arm reliquaries once part of the Guelph treasure, an important medieval sacral collection of over 140 relics and liturgical objects that was kept for centuries at the cathedral of Saint Blaise at Brunswick, Germany, until it was dispersed in the 1930s. Dean Walker, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 114.

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